Media Room

Bagging it

Bags, clothes, sweets and lots more! Our students can hone their entrepreneurship skills even more with the opening of the newly-opened Entrepreneurship Incubation Centre (EIC) at the School of Business.

Looking for a bag?

Then why don't you go on down to Bugis Street and visit Bag Lady?

Operated by SP students Bai Peiyu and three of her School of Business classmates, the business has been successfully selling, well, ladies handbags.

Success stories like Bag Lady, with a monthly profit $3,000 and total revenue of $70,000, are on the rise.

As a mark of their appreciation for the head-start and support given to them, 18 of our young businessmen and women have turned over $10,000 of their profits to the Polytechnic.

Bai Peiyu and her classmates show off their bags.

Peiyu's venture is a project of SP's Entrepreneurship Concentration Programme, in which students build their own businesses and run them, from the ground up, over a six-month period.

School of Business Development Section Head John Foo said: "By investing their own money, the students better appreciate what costs and profits mean and have a realistic experience of being an entrepreneur."

Now the Polytechnic has a new way of supporting and starting businesses like Bag Lady—the Entrepreneurship Incubation Centre (EIC) at the School of Business, which officially opened on 05 February 2007.

The EIC has seven furbished offices, all fully-equipped with wireless transmission and a 24-seater meeting room... almost Apprentice-like in its efficiency.

Since the initial set-up phase in 2006, the student entrepreneurs now run five businesses such as selling clothing, accessories, chocolates, drinks and etc.

Another shop run by SB students is Niche, in Haji Lane, where you can get all your designer togs.

But they're alone -- they are supervised by lecturers and under the mentorship of successful entrepreneurs and businessmen from 13 companies companies such as from the Crescendas Group, Parkinsons International Pte Ltd and Subway Investments Pte Ltd.

The programme's intake is expected to double to 40 students next year, and be extended to students reading business IT.